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The Rooks Have Come Back
Alexei Savrasov · Romanticism & Landscape
- Artist
- Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov (1830–1897)
- Date
- 1871
- Dimensions
- 62 x 48.5 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
This small painting shows a group of bare birch trees at the edge of a village in early spring, with rooks busily building their nests in the branches. The snow is melting into grey puddles, and behind the trees stand a white church and a few wooden houses.
A closer look
The return of the rooks from the south is, in Russia, the first sign of spring. Savrasov painted the scene in the village of Molvitino in Kostroma province, turning an ordinary, unremarkable view into a quietly moving image of the Russian land waking up. The palette is subdued, greys, browns and soft blues, but the light in the sky and the activity of the birds bring hope and life. At the first exhibition of the Peredvizhniki in 1871, the painting was a sensation, and it is often seen as the beginning of a truly national school of Russian landscape painting.